By IANS,
New Delhi : Former Haryana minister Gopal Goyal Kanda was Thursday denied bail in Geetika Sharma’s suicide case by a Delhi court which asked police to probe if there was a link between the former flight attendant’s death and her pregnancy.
District and Additional Sessions Judge S.K. Sarvaria dismissed the bail application of Kanda as the police opposed it. The application was moved Wednesday.
The court, while rejecting Kanda’s bail plea, observed that the investigation was at an initial stage and the accused could hamper the investigation if released.
The judge said that the post-mortem report “shows one strange thing that the deceased/victim woman was habituated to vaginal and anal penetration, therefore, the matter requires investigation whether the victim declined to join the services with the accused or was being pressured to join it for the purpose of her sexual abuse or not”.
“The continuous pressure on the victim woman by the accused persons to join the duties and to come to the office either to sign documents or otherwise despite the fact that she was doing MBA and was not willing to come to the office of the main accused also requires that proper investigation may be conducted with regard to the fact that the pregnancy of the victim woman has any connection with pressurising her to join duties with the company of the applicant/accused.”
“Investigation is still at initial stage and the accused is likely to hamper investigation, if granted bail,” said the court.
“Keeping in view, all these and overall facts and circumstances of the case, I do not find it a fit case for grant of bail. The bail application is dismissed,” the court said.
The court remark came after Kanda’s counsel Ramesh Gupta questioned police over the existence of any connection between her suicide and pregnancy.
He told the court that on March 9 Geetika visited a doctor over her pregnancy. But no foetus was found in her womb in her post-mortem.
“In what manner the child was aborted? Was it a legal (pregnancy) termination. Who was the person behind her pregnancy,” asked Gupta.
Her post-mortem report failed to reveal any physical relation of Geetika with the accused, he claimed.
While opposing Kanda’s bail plea, police told the court that the accused destroyed a cell phone that he used to contact Geetika. The hard disk of a computer in his office was found detached.
Kanda and his employee Aruna Chaddha, a former official of the defunct MDLR Airlines where Geetika had worked, are in judicial custody till Sep 25.
The former Haryana minister, who owned the airlines, was arrested Aug 18 and Chaddha was taken into custody Aug 8.
Geetika, 23, died on the night of Aug 4-5 at her house in Delhi’s Ashok Vihar area.
Her two suicide notes named Kanda and Chaddha for harassing her and driving her to suicide. Both have denied the allegations.
Kanda was forced to resign as minister of state for home and urban local bodies in Haryana in the face of public outcry over Geetika’s suicide.